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In this collection of free verse lyric poems I have drawn inspiration from childhood memories, as well as from the natural world and encounters with the people around me. Each poem focuses on a small moment, presenting an emotive portrait of a memory or an experience. These small moments lead, cumulatively, to deeper insights into myself and the world around me. The collection is divided into four seasons, in part because the work is strongly influenced by the natural world, but also because the progression of the seasons mirrors something of the personal journey reflected in the poems.

A discrepancy appears to exist between the value placed on reflective journal writing by the writers of journals and the value seen by educators of that same journal writing. In this study, I explored the journal writing of six tutors working in a learning centre at a two-year community college in western Canada. I examined: (1) tutors' perspectives on the journal writing task; (2) the content and reflectivity of tutors' journals; and, (3) the accuracy of the journals in representing tutor thinking initiated by the journal writing task. The initial data collection for the study included observation of weekly in-service training sessions and examination of tutor journal entries. Tutors were interviewed about their perceptions of journal writing and their thinking around issues they wrote about in their journals. The tutor trainer was interviewed about his expectations of tutor journal writing, his reactions to tutors' journals and his perceptions of the journal writing task. After the initial data collection, the participants were given summaries of data collected in the initial phase. Tutors read the summaries and as a group discussed issues raised by the data. I interviewed the trainer about insights he had gained from the summaries. Content choices and levels of reflectivity in the tutors' journals varied widely. Factors affecting the content and levels of reflection in the tutors' journals were affected by tutors’ understanding of the journal writing task, their motivation for journal writing, their feelings of vunerability, their personal histories, their tutoring experience, their preference for writing as a mode of learning, and their purposes for writing journals. Most tutors perceived their journals as useful to them, but the tutor trainer regarded the journals as less useful. This difference in perception of the benefits of journal writing can be attributed, at least in part, to the differing levels of access of the trainer and the tutors to the benefits of journal writing. The trainer based his understanding of the benefits of journal writing on the journals themselves whereas the tutors were aware of benefits that were not apparent from studying the journals. Interviews with the tutors showed that tutors reflected more as a result of the journal writing task than was evident from their journals. The trainer’s view of the reflection initiated by the journal writing task was obscured in tutors’ journals due to the fact, that tutors reported prior reflection, provided incomplete representation of their reflective thinking, made rhetorical choices which masked their levels of reflection, and continued to reflect after completion of journal entries. Implications of the study for educators include the importance of a process approach to journal writing, the risks of assuming that journals provide an accurate picture of the reflection the task initiates, and factors for consideration in the construction of the prompt for journal writing. Implications for researchers focus on the risks of assuming that journals provide an accurate measure of the benefits of the journal writing task. Collaboration with journal writers is seen as essential for any such measure to be achieved. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

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There has been little research which shows that students use critical thinking skills when they write. The use of journal writing has been studied for a variety of purposes, but little evidence exists that journal writing can enhance critical thinking skills. The writing assignments presented in this study were designed to enhance the critical thinking skills of college students enrolled in a reading methods course at a small college in southern West Virginia. Case studies were used to describe the critical thinking skills used by the four participating students. Each of the six writing assignments was developed to elicit as many critical thinking responses as the student could write during the time allotted in class. All of the writing assignments were completed within the framework of the reading class, and two of them were completed as collaborative group work. Twenty critical thinking skills were used as the criteria for examining the responses that students used in their writing. The twenty skills were placed in these four categories: Analyzing Arguments/Issues which included five critical thinking skills; Clarifying Information which included four critical thinking skills Inferring which included six critical thinking skills; and Evaluating Arguments/Issues which included five critical thinking skills. These twenty critical thinking skills were coded so that they could be easily recorded on tables. Findings indicated that the four participating students used more Inferring and Analyzing skills than they did the Clarifying and Evaluating skills. All of the skills were used at least one time in the six assignments. Students praised the journal for giving them an opportunity to "freely express ourselves,·' / Ed. D.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study examined the effects of specially designed thinking journal activities that have been attributed with encouraging reflective thinking, on instruction using generic, or content-free problem solving software. Sixty-three fourth grade students participated in four instructional sessions using a software package called Moptown Hotel. Students completed separate posttests that measured (1) performance on problems of the same kind as those used in instruction, and (2) transfer of skills to other kinds of problems. Scores of students who wrote thinking journals prior to testing were compared with scores of students who did not. Results indicate that students who wrote thinking journals performed the same as students who did not when tested on problems similar to those practiced in class. Tests in which students transferred their skills to word problems, however, produced significant differences. There was no significant difference between scores when averaged over all four weekly occasions. However, for the final session alone, students who wrote thinking journals scored higher on tests of problem solving transfer than students who did not (p < .01). The study also examined the relationship between the degree of metacognitive thought displayed in students' journal entries, and their measured problem solving ability. Results indicate that students who had higher average reflectivity scores also had higher average problem solving performance and transfer scores (p < .05). It was also noted that the significant relationship between reflectivity and scores of problem solving ability was only observed in male students. It was concluded that under the right conditions, and for the right kinds of problems, thinking journal writing can help students understand their own thinking processes, resulting in improved problem solving behavior. The study also raises the question of whether there are differences between the ways that male and female students apply metacognitive awareness gained through journal writing experiences.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Touching Brýnstone is the story of Beth, a young journalist who is troubled by misfortunes in her family and work circumstances. In a Pretoria library she is seduced by a book that consoles her and progressively becomes a fetish object. It sparks a journey to Japan, where she arrives to teach English. She is intent on meeting the author, whom she confounds with protagonist and book. This Bildungsroman is an exploration of the complex relationship between inner and outer self, and the struggle towards wholeness. Beth must find a way out of the obsession so that she can return to South Africa with an enriched insight into her shadow self.

Writing-to-learn strategies have been administered in the past to enrich student learning. The purpose of this study was to see if K-W-L prompts in science journal writing could benefit student content knowledge within biology. Two high school biology classes were provided with learning journals. The journals given to the students during the treatment unit were provided with K-W-L question prompts to guide student learning while during the comparison unit students were given an open ended writing assignment. Pre and posttests were administered to determine student-learning gains. Student motivations and opinions of the treatment were collected through student interviews. The combined results were used to determine to what extent could K-W-L prompts in science journal writing influence comprehension of content knowledge. This study found there to be no difference in student learning gains when utilizing the K-W-L literacy strategy versus another free-writing activity. When scored, student K-W-Ls total scores did correlate to student success on unit tests. This opens up the potential for K-W-Ls to serve as an adequate tool for formative assessment. Here the K-W-L could be expanded to enrich student question asking, potentially aid students learning English, and potentially be used by students without teacher scaffolding.